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http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-pta/files/production/public/EMBARGOED%20Parent%20Check%20List.pdf

Questions to help parents who want to become more engaged and involved in their children's school

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http://www.familyschool.org.au/files/9413/7955/4757/framework.pdf
Here is a link to a family school partnership framework that the Australian government produced. I think it is interesting to see diverse perspectives, including those from other countries.

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Student Voice in Family/School Partnership

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Student Voice in Family/School Partnership

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjanNLbDOXw

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https://youtu.be/L-dHflphT_0
Posted by Conchitia-Renee Pack. This youtube video represents a wonderful example of school, parents, and community working together to educate children. I love the home visit concept. I have long thought that a summer or early fall semester visit to a student's home to meet the parents, and acquaint each other on goals and expectations is key. All involved benefit from the first of the year connection. Parents are absolutely thrilled with the reach-out. Teachers can be sure that they will have support from parents that see this home visit gesture as a genuine attempt to establish a positive relationship.

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I thought this was a very important clip with some helpful pointers...
https://youtu.be/Lc_8Qjl2GPU

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Establishing relationships with the parents of the students we serve is so important. I would argue more important now than ever before. My perspective comes from my experiences working in mostly inner-city schools. It is almost impossible to educate our youth and best serve them without supporting and soliciting support from the parents and guardians.
https://youtu.be/kin2OdchKMQ

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School and family partnerships are so vital in the success of schools. Especially, when you think about some of our most diverse communities. A few years ago I served as the Marketing & Enrollment manager at a local charter school. One of the most essential roles that the position required was maintaining and establishing strong community partnerships. I used the partnerships to provide the students opportunities but also to help market my school.

https://youtu.be/wfqSbNZPstg

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Posted by Blake Manuel
As part of a course in the Urban Principalship Program, School-Community Relations, I was a part of a group that created a website that reviewed a number of ways to get parents involved in schools. The foucs of the website was to provide resources that help teachers initiate and sustain communication with parents.

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Posted by Blake Manuel
Many schools have adopted PBIS practices but many do not realize that family-school partnerships is a key element of PBIS practices
https://www.pbis.org/family/family-partnership

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Posted by Krystal Brand
I would love to have more parent involvement in my classroom. Having a few more eyes, ears and hands would be beneficial especially when we are working on projects or labs. I would even venture to say that a parent-mentor program would be beneficial! I have asked why the Dad's clubs aren't seen in our high school and I was told that it was a power issue. I think that is where the parent-mentor training would help parents to learn more about the culture and expectations of the school. Then we could eliminate the idea that parents may react inappropriately in certain situations.
https://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/347-start-a-dads-club

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Family-school Partnerships are Crucial to School Reform-article

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Family-school Partnerships are Crucial to School Reform-article

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Posted by Katie Kromer

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Karen Mapp, a Harvard lecturer whose research specialty is partnerships that support better educational outcomes for kids, told guests at the Children's Institute's annual luncheon on Friday that building successful schools means engaging families as equal partners - not as clients, not as supplements to the educational process and not as people who need saving.

"Family and community engagement is an essential ingredient to reform our schools," Mapp, a past deputy superintendent for family and community engagement for Boston Public Schools who now serves as a consultant on family engagement to the U.S. Department of Education, said in her keynote speech at the advocacy group's seventh annual Make It Your Business lunch. "In other words, you can't improve your schools without your families and community. Case closed."

In an interview with the Children's Institute this month, Mapp defined family engagement as "the variety of roles and activities families participate in: monitoring their children's time, supporting learning, and being models and advocates for their children."

Mapp said at Friday's luncheon that engaging families requires school administrators and teachers to invest more time and energy, but the returns on that investment are worthwhile: faster rates of literacy acquisition, higher grades and test scores, more consistent attendance, more credits earned, better social skills and behavior, higher graduation rates and more students going to college.

"Any teacher will tell you that the families have an impact on what happens when the child comes into that classroom," Mapp said. "If you're not including your families in the conversation about student learning, you've missed out on a core ingredient."

But, Mapp said, while educators recognize that family engagement is important, many don't really know how to go about it. Sometimes, she said, it is treated as "a supplemental thing that we'll do later - and then we wonder why we can't get any traction." Other times, "we think we can take one thing from one place and plunk it down in another place" without considering the change in context.

Or families find themselves placed into partnerships that are ineffective: "Let's put our families on those school site councils. Let's put our families on those budget committees. (But) has anybody explained to those families how this stuff works?"

So as part of her work with the Department of Education, Mapp said, she developed a framework for family-school partnerships. That framework has several essential components, including:

Ensuring that families understand what their children are learning or are supposed to be learning. "Every time we're together," Mapp said of educators and families, "it should be focused on what the kids should know and be able to do."

Ensuring that educators and families are building relationships. "If there's no relationship, there's no partnership," Mapp said. "A lot of times we try to jump right into the work. We don't even know the names of the people sitting across the table from us."

Ensuring that families feel empowered as true collaborators. "A lot of times the educators go into communities and say, 'We got this ... we're there to save them, to help them,' " Mapp said. "No. They have funds of knowledge that we need to do our job."

Each framework, she said, needs to be applied systemically and provided with adequate resources and infrastructure to sustain it.

For those looking for specific case studies, Mapp recommended the booklet "Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships," available as a free download on the Department of Education's website. The 32-page publication explains how her framework was applied at Stanton Elementary School, a charter school in Washington, D.C.; in Boston Public Schools; and in Santa Clara County in California.

At Stanton Elementary, for instance, the staff launched a home visiting program and followed it with a group approach to parent conferences; by the end of that school year, students' reading and math scores had increased significantly. In Santa Clara County, more than 40 nonprofit, school district and government partners now work together to prioritize the developmental needs of children ages birth to 5, most notably through family resource centers that provide information, training and community connections.

"This work really requires a mindset shift," Mapp said. "We've got to go from seeing our families and family engagement as an add-on - extra work, something we do as supplemental, not necessary to the work of student achievement and school improvement - to really seeing it as an essential, fundamental component of effective practice."

Also at Friday's luncheon, the Children's Institute honored Sue Miller, a former mayor of Salem and current chair of the Oregon Community Foundation board of directors who has been involved in early learning services including family relief nurseries and the Early Learning Hub for Marion County. Miller received the third annual Alexander Award, named for the late Richard C. "Dick" Alexander, a founding board member of Children's Institute. The award, which recognizes those who work to ensure all children have a strong start in life, has also gone to the late Lynn Lundquist, former speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives and founding president of the Oregon Business Association, and former Gov. John Kitzhaber.

-- Amy Wang

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Family-school partnerships are crucial to school reform, says Harvard expert

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Karen Mapp, a Harvard lecturer whose research specialty is partnerships that support better educational outcomes for kids, told guests at the Children's Institute's annual luncheon on Friday that building successful schools means engaging families as equal partners - not as clients, not as supplements to the educational process and not as people who need saving.

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Annenberg publishes this monthly journal.  Each issue addresses a speciifc topic with multiple articles.
Posted by Dr. Begrhoff

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Getting to Know Students, Families, Neighborhoods

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Getting to Know Students, Families, Neighborhoods

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From the Great Lakes Equity Center at IUPUI
Posted by Dr. Berghoff

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Kirstyn Preizer - This comes from EdUtopia and has video and article.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-parent-teacher-partnerships